3 Wrong Practices when Parenting with your Teens

Teenagers and Adult Parents perceive Technology in different ways, so we adults often make wrong moves while having good intentions. Here I explain how.

Complaining about how they use these tools

As teens use online tools to redefine their Identity, at the point that they become their Identity, then complaining about how they use them means complaining about themselves.
It’s the same as we tell them they’re wrong: we attack their Personality, their Inner Self.

Cutting off Internet or Taking away the smartphone

Internet is not the cause: it’s a tool by which our teens connect to the World and redefine themselves.
So if we take away the smartphone from a teen, then we subtract not just his main communication tool, but also a tool he uses to belong to his group.
Taking their smartphones would make our sons to feel isolated.

Many teens are aware of the side effects of the misuse of the smartphones, but the need for connection is stronger.

Letting go (permissive parenting style)

We usually talk about narcissism: parents have so much fear to feel inappropriate that they leave their sons do whatever they want, in order to not let their teens complain about them.
These parents fear to appear inappropriate parents to themselves, so they act in order to conferm the image of the best parents.
Obviously this is a lie: parents don’t have to please their sons all the time…

Originally published at www.digitalparentingtips.com on March 23, 2016.